Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/93

Rh could be mine again, or leave the mortal body you had selected. That fool played into my hands. I sent him dreams from the time he was born again. He found you as I knew he would. I tried to make him kill your mortal frame and send you back to the Outer Space and me, but you prevented that. Your Godhead watched over you, for you had only put it aside. So I had to make him bring your Codhead back to the body you chose. I did my work well. And you played into my hands.

"Now he is finished, and you are mine once more!" He smiled coldly and stretched out his hand.

I knew to what he would take me. Being a Goddess I knew all things. Once before in the dim, legendary past I had fought with him and lost because his power was as strong as mine and he was wiser. But now to my Godhead was added human wisdom and love.

A line came to me: "A God is as real as the belief of his worshippers." Harvey's belief was a weapon in my hand. It was I he had worshipped in his heart, not the Lost God, and I had drawn Harvey's strength into me with that death-dealing kiss.

I bent over. I lifted Harvey in my arms as easily as though he had been a child instead of a man, for my strength was superhuman. I held him against my hip with one arm and standing thus faced the Lost God.

"No!" I cried, my voice ringing with awe-inspiring power. "No, if I must I will renounce my Godhead forever, but before I do, I will send you back, back to the far spaces, from which never again will a worshipper draw you hence!"

"So once more we struggle!" His voice matched mine. "So be it. "This time I will win forever."

He raised his hands and let loose the forces of nature. A storm arose such as I have never heard. The ocean lashed, peal after peal of thunder shook the room, lightning flashed all about us.

"Go—" I cried again. "No one has faith in you, not even I!"

I saw him fall back and then I exerted every atom of the power that I possessed. "Go, my Godhead," I shouted above the storm. "Go forever and take him with you."

I felt as though something were tearing through my being. There was a terrific wrench, a cataclysmic shudder as though some vital thing were being forced from me. At the same time came a clap of thunder and an awful streak of lightning.

N IT I saw the Lost God, saw the reproach and defeat on his face. Then he was gone and I was Irene again. Plain Irene, no longer a Goddess but a human girl trying to hold up the insupportable weight Harvey had become. The moment I realized this I saw that behind me the green damask was in flames.

Now indeed I regretted my lost Godhead. I dragged Harvey over to where I thought the door would be.

After agonizing moments, while the flames leaped higher and crept nearer to me I found the door. I got Harvey out into the corridor away from the house, down the hill to the garage. A little superhuman strength must have been left to me for somehow or other I got him into the car.

Fortunately the key was in it and I could drive. As I went through the gates I looked back. The house on the Dunes was a mass of flame.

Why, believing as I did Harvey was dead, I went directly to a doctor in the village, I don't know, but I did and the doctor said Harvey had been struck by lightning. He applied first aid, and after working on him for hours, brought him back to life.

I shall never forget the moment when